Spring Rose Pruning Tips for Healthy Growth & Abundant Blooms

As the weather warms up, the growth of roses accelerates significantly and new buds sprout rapidly. Recently, many florists, after reading the bud wiping and fertilizing tips previously shared by Lan Yao, have been asking, “How do I prune my roses in the spring when they have already sprouted?”

Many flower lovers did not prune their roses in the winter, or simply pruned them without thorough streamlining. Now, these problems are gradually appearing. Below, Blue Demon will take a flower friend’s roses as an example, and introduce the pruning method of early spring roses in detail.

Early spring rose pruning method

If fine pruning has been carried out during the dormant period in winter, then in early spring, you only need to wipe the buds appropriately, and there is no need to carry out large-scale pruning. However, if no pruning was done during the winter, it is important to prune in early spring. Although roses have already begun to bud, pruning will lose some nutrients, but in the long run, pruning is still more favorable than not pruning.

1. Plasticizing and pruning methods

Pruning is similar to winter pruning. First, cut off 2/3 to 1/2 of the overall height of the plant. The exact amount of pruning can be determined according to the growth status of the plant and the development of the buds.

• Unpruned in winter: If you have not pruned in winter, the buds at the top of the branch may have begun to sprout, while the buds at the bottom may still be dormant or just expanding. If you want the new branch to be strong, you can just cut off 2/3 of the height of the plant. Don’t worry about the bottom buds not being full enough, they will become noticeably fuller a week after pruning.
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• Abundant or miniature roses: For these roses, you can cut back only 1/2 of the height of the plant and keep more buds so that they will bloom more profusely in the spring.
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When pruning, try to retain bud points that are consistent in their development so that spring germination and blooming will be neater. If you keep the big buds that have sprouted at the top and the small buds at the bottom are not well developed, it may result in the top blooming first and the buds at the bottom growing slowly or even not blooming.

2. Additional Pruning Methods

Some flower lovers have already pruned their roses in the winter, but due to the lack of thorough pruning, they are now experiencing some problems. At this time, supplementary pruning is needed.

Case 1: Too many thin and weak branches

The rose in the picture below is a flower friend’s plant, although the winter pruning, but pruning is not thorough enough.

As you can see, there are very few new shoots on the strong branches, while there are a lot of new shoots on the weak branches. These weak branches are usually located inside the plant, and if they are allowed to grow, they will lead to poor ventilation and light, and form a large number of blind branches. Therefore, it is now necessary to cut back these weak branches completely and retain the thicker ones.

For ground-planted roses, with sufficient nutrients, it is appropriate to leave more branches, but Blue Demon suggests controlling the height of the plant to 30-40 cm above the ground for better control of the plant.

Case 2: Uneven development of bud points

Another rose was pruned in winter, but the pruning was not in place, resulting in unbalanced bud point development, the plant is taller, the top bud point develops rapidly, and the bottom bud point is smaller. If left untreated, the plant will grow taller and taller with thin branches, detracting from the overall beauty of the plant. Supplemental pruning can be done now, taking care to retain bud points with similar growth when pruning.

Lao Yao advice is: new branches keep the unsprouted buds, cut off the sprouted buds; thicker branches keep only the bottom sprouted buds, and cut off all the rest.

Why cut off the thick branches?

Some florists may ask, “Why should thick branches be cut off too? Shouldn’t we keep the thick branches?” The reason why Blue Demon suggests to cut off the thick branches is that these branches may have aged or have poor growth direction, which affects the overall shape of the plant and the quality of the blooms. Keeping healthy branches with good growth direction will allow roses to show their best in the spring.